Balance Is Everything

As one studies health and fitness, it becomes very evident that all things must be in balance. You can have too much or too little of any nutrient.

You can have too many free radicals, but you can also have too few. You can have too little iron, but you can also have too much. You can even have too little or too much arsenic.

So then the big question becomes, how do you find that balance?

Many would have you believe that taking drugs can help you reach that balance. It can not.

All man made drugs are anti-balance by their very nature. When you take something from nature that has been shown to be beneficial for health, and then you dissect it and decide that a certain part of it is the active part that you want to use, you have just destroyed the balance that existed in nature. By concentrating a particular part of a plant (which you have to do, if you are going to be able to patent the drug), you are creating something that will stimulate the body in an unnatural and imbalanced way. That is why all drugs have side effects.

It would be so much nicer to just create a list of the beneficial plants that we have discovered to help us be healthy. But you can't patent a natural plant, so you can't make an insane mark up of the price.

So if drugs aren't the answer, what about supplements?

Unfortunately most supplements are not much different than drugs. Yes, they will often have a lot fewer dangerous side effects than drugs, but sometimes not. You still have the same problem of taking a large dose of a particular thing. If supplements were really to work, you would have to constantly monitor your levels of the nutrient you are supplementing to see when you have enough, but not too much.

The problem with that is that we can't even agree on what the correct level of most nutrients is, not to mention the problem of constant testing to see when your levels are up or down. The other thing is that all the nutrients work together, synergisticly, to keep us functioning correctly. We don't even know what all the nutrients to the human body are, let alone how they all work together. We have some basic ideas, but it is nowhere near the point of being able to micromanage the nutrients in the body.

Another interesting observation is that the symptoms of having too much of something, are quite often pretty much identical to having too little of the same thing. So we don't really even know for sure.

Even blood tests can fool us, because somethings that we have too much of can be very low in the blood, because the body is storing it away elsewhere so that it doesn't have to deal with the overload. Other times, things that we are deficient in can show good levels in the blood while the body tries to rush them around to share in all the places they are needed. For example, when we are deficient, the body can be pulling certain nutrients from the bones to use in other body processes. So a blood test might show that those nutrients are plentiful in the blood.

The beautiful thing is that we don't have to try to micromanage everything. If we eat the things that the creator has made for us, they have a special ability, that we haven't even begun to understand yet, to balance all the systems of the body.

If you think you need a particular nutrient, (and again we really don't know if you do) just make sure that you are eating a variety of good nutritious food made by God. Of course, make sure that it is not processed by man to the point of destroying a lot of its balance. Fresh and raw are usually the best. Try to get something from all the major food groups each day.

The major food groups are : Whole unprocessed grains, vegetables, fruit, legumes and nuts, and carefully chosen animal products (think raw milk and eggs).

The other major keys to making everything balance are water, exercise and sleep. Without those three, the other nutrients can't even be used by the body.

Again, water is of paramount importance. Without adequate water the body cannot move nutrients around the body. Without water it cannot flush out the toxins and waste and keep the body clean. Also remember that your water needs to be mineralized. Use real mineral water fresh from the earth if possible, or put a dash of real sea salt (complete with all the trace-minerals) in the water you drink. If you are drinking sufficient quantities of water (one tenth of your body weight in pounds, cups of water a day) your body will be able to use what it needs and flush out what it doesn't need.

Balance is a natural thing for the body to do. We just have to give it the resources it needs, and not burden it to much with the toxins or overeating.

Ryan's book on "The Dependables" is a great way to gain a lot of understanding along these lines. Get it HERE.